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  Judge Backs All of Microsoft Settlement-Sources
Time: 16:42 EST/21:42 GMT | News Source: Reuters | Posted By: Byron Hinson

A federal judge on Friday endorsed all of the antitrust settlement that Microsoft Corp. reached with the Justice Department last year, sources familiar with the ruling said. The sources said U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly had rejected the alternative demands of nine states opposed to the settlement.

An appeals court in June of 2001 upheld trial court findings that Microsoft had illegally maintained its Windows monopoly in personal computer operating systems. There was no immediate word on whether the nine states, which had rejected the settlement of the over four-year-old case as ineffective, would appeal Kollar-Kotelly's decision.

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#1 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 4:50:27 PM
Great!!

Let's just hope the NS States don't appeal.

#2 By 3653 (63.162.177.140) at 11/1/2002 4:50:46 PM
MICROSOFT and consumers WIN!

http://money.cnn.com/2002/11/01/technology/microsoft_remedy/index.htm

Eat me McNealy, sodajerk, bleeyp, Linus! Dogpile is waiting, now insert face. Thats right rub your noses all in it.

"The decision eliminates the establishment of a technical committee to assess Microsoft's compliance with the agreement. In its place, a corporate compliance committee -- consisting of Microsoft board members -- will make sure Microsoft lives up to the deal, the judge said. "

WIN WIN WIN WIN WIN

What a great start to a wonderful weekend!

#3 By 931 (66.180.122.62) at 11/1/2002 4:56:26 PM
I knew buying the stock at 49 was a deal.. climb baby climb! should be good for a few points..


#4 By 2960 (68.100.157.191) at 11/1/2002 4:57:24 PM
#4,

Well, Microsoft wins. The rest we'll just have to wait and see...

TL

#5 By 1124 (165.170.128.66) at 11/1/2002 4:57:25 PM
This is good, but I think Microsoft should go to the Supreme Court and get this overturned.

#6 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 5:06:41 PM
"So basically you can be dam sure MS will use this provision under the guise of "anti-piracy, anti-virus, software licensing, digital rights management, encryption or authentication systems" to block any info which would all competitors to interoperate better with MS. "

No more than they do currently. There are many things MS could have left closed and claimed it was for security reasons while complying with the original settlement terms, but they haven't yet abused this ability.

#7 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/1/2002 5:26:43 PM
macross, I said it was a gamble and I like to gamble. I also called you all pussies for not taking the bet but bringing up in the first place. So, thanks, you gave me something to enjoy... Now back to reading K-K's opinion.

#8 By 3653 (63.162.177.140) at 11/1/2002 5:52:22 PM
Jerk, stop wasting time reading the opinion. Let me save you some time...

YOU LOSE! CONSUMERS WIN!

This post was edited by mooresa56 on Friday, November 01, 2002 at 17:53.

#9 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 6:07:53 PM
I still question their monopoly. If Jackson hadn't narrowed the field so much, he could have never proven a monopoly. Even in his narrow representation of the market, there is still evidence of a lack of monopoly. Heck, many of the statements in the Findings of Fact basically said MS was on top because users didn't want to switch to other products. That sounds like choice to me.

#10 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 6:15:34 PM
Not only that, Mr. Dee, they wanted MS to do the job of distributing their products for them. Why couldn't Sun just send out a bunch of CD's like AOL did (what's funny is that they tried to get on the AOL CD and silently install)? Distribution was also the argument that made AOL look stupid (besides other things). Why does AOL need to be on the Windows desktop so badly? Everyone knows who they are already. They have flooded the market with Ads and disks and discs for years (They were also sued for not paying the disk company). Many people think AOL is the internet when that couldn't be further from reality.

This post was edited by n4cer on Friday, November 01, 2002 at 18:17.

#11 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 11/1/2002 6:18:41 PM
Damn, I should have taken that bet! :) It does appear I was right that the settlement has been slightly modified as it relates to enforcement.

Sounds good. Microsoft should accept this, and overly comply with it... Their competition is sure to look like whiners and will quickly lose support in the public eye. Not that they have much now, most people have moved past this issue and on to other bigger things(*cough* Enron.

This ought to be good for the markets on monday. Maybe we can start to now see a recovery of the tech market.

#12 By 1845 (12.254.162.111) at 11/1/2002 6:21:59 PM
JWM, what you mean to say is that consumers don't win until YOU get what YOU want. There are a good deal of consumers, myself included, that would prefer that nothing happen to Microsoft.

Also, didn't you say just days ago that Microsoft legally obtained their monopoly? If they didn't break the law obtaining it, then it stands to reason that the curbs should be on how they use it and not on destroying it.

#13 By 2 (24.54.153.247) at 11/1/2002 6:52:06 PM
Microsoft is a good company; unlike some others recently...

#14 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 6:53:56 PM
The application one was also legally obtained. Word was created because Wordperfect didn't want to move to Windows. Later, MS made a suite of applications (Office), and sold it for about what single word processors were selling for.

Now you have virtually the same thing happening with things like Star/OpenOffice. The difference is that those products don't measure up in featureset or usability compared to the current market leader. MS engineered their way to the top. Why can't others do the same? If there is a common problem among the competition (Windows), why don't they pool their resources and invest R&D collectively into Linux or some other platform? Why can't they make something new that (through R&D expenditure) they can make as accessible to users as Windows, if not more so?

They can get systems support from Sun, IBM, and the x86 market, device support from Palm and Nokia, common coding platform from Sun (with improvement), easy online with AOL, networking with Novell. What's the problem?

This post was edited by n4cer on Friday, November 01, 2002 at 18:56.

#15 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/1/2002 6:58:28 PM
mooresa, do you really think the anti-MS crowd lost? I got all my provisions for the most part, although I would have gone for more creative solutions as well; a huge amount of ill-will and attention has been given to MS; with a decision in place (and I'll bet the states don't appeal), we can wait for MS to be in contempt of the order so K-K can slap 'em; and others have made gains and the consumers will consider options...

Would I want more? Yes. Do I think my position yielded no results? Hell, no, the last 3 years have been great--or should I say lousy for MS in terms of public perception.

yup, you should hav taken it, soda.

mhfm, you sound like an idiot. But you are right though--which is exactly the problem with the Republicans--rather than reflect what the law would grant (the case was won), they circumvent it for their buddies or the co with the most dough.

JWM and Bob, are you guys suggesting the changes aren't appreciated by the consumers and are not an improvement? I think they most certainly are, and I wanted them, and I wanted more. The consumer is an idiot, that doesn't mean MS had to do it the way they did it in the first place nor that it was right to do so.

Yes, it will, boner. Just think: now the EU knows--yes, the US will be soft on MS. They've been waiting to find that out--now they'll be a bit harsher. K-K is going to make sure MS complies. The DOJ will have to deal with complaints that MS isn't complying. There are several private cases, and many class action cases. And depending on how MS gets to feel about itself and its strategies, they may put themselves right back in the same boat under different circumstances.

#16 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 7:23:43 PM
Maybe the US was "soft" on MS because the non-settling states had nothing to stand on besides complaints from competitors that they can't make software well enough to compete. Their chief piece of evidence was supposed to be a modular Windows. MS said it couldn't be done without breaking things. MS said it couldn't be done with XP Embedded. The states more than proved MS' case for them with the full computer, 67 CDs and additional harddrive images of XP Embedded (and they didn't even have the requested 2 copies of evidence).

#17 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/1/2002 7:29:56 PM
JWM, having a central mechanism for selecting or disabling middleware/media tech, making it possible for MS tech to be removed, allowing OEMs to package other OSes or software with THEIR hardware product, allowing the distributors to determine the appearance of the desktop... some of this stuff has trickled out over the last year or so, but would never have happened without the case.

enforcer, you're confused again--the case was already over when they were doing the punishment evidentiary hearings. There was plenty of evidence to prove MS responible for violating the law.

#18 By 3108 (200.63.129.177) at 11/1/2002 7:32:36 PM
I love Lucy!!!, eeh I mean Billy
I can not wait to read an stupid post of beeyp, it he dares to post.
This is a huge step to Microsoft, because It will give enoght time to deliver the .net vision,
next year we will see new .net Servers, specially the Beta version of SQL Server 2003 which is aimed to kill Oracle, and if we are lucky we can betatest the Windows Longhorn which will feature a new filesystem called WinFS, slowly everything is taking its place, Sun loses, Oracle loses, AOL loses, Linux loses, and consumer wins.

#19 By 2332 (65.221.182.3) at 11/1/2002 7:35:45 PM
Ok... if you guys remember what Sodajerk said a few days ago, what the court says is not just what goes, it's TRUTH. Sodajerk believes that if a court says something, all people who disagree must now change their minds or shut up.

So, Sodajerk, I suspect you'll be quite quiet from now on?

Muhahaa.

#20 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 11/1/2002 7:43:04 PM
No, RMD I said an intelligent argument would at least recognize the laws of this country--you sitting there saying, "I wish the law was this, and because I wish that, I've proven MS hasn't broken the law" is an idiotic thing to do.

I accept the decision, yes--there are also areas of disagreement. I didn't say disagreement wasn't permitted; I said idiocy wasn't tolerated, and I called you an idiot and your argument idiotic. For example, K-K determined that part of the remedy didn't require dissolving the illegal monopoly because it wasn't illegally acquired--but this provision is for all Sherman act violations either 1 or 2 or whichever article and 1 is the only article that says a monopoly is acquired illegally--so I disagree with her. A monopoly, whether naturally formed or not, which abuses its monopoly power illegally is an illegal monopoly. (See that's an argument that's based on our laws and doesn't sound idiotic.) But hey, there is no reason to read the ruling, right, mooresa? We wouldn't want to do the intelligent thing--we should just base our opinions on internet articles? I'm sure most of you won't read the full ruling and won't even know the above reference I am making--again, idiocy.

I suspect you don't see the difference, but hey, what can I do if you don't understand.

By the way, Byron, or Bob, and other guys at AW, the important document is "Lit11-1.pdf" which contains the opinions, evidence, precedents, determinations of law. Who cares about the ORDER--this is virtually identical to the SRPFJ we saw 10 months ago, K-K has issued about 20 ORDERs over the past 3 months that no one needed to waste their time with. I would suggest changing the link to that document if you are interesting in educating some of the dumb@sses at the site. The facts of the result will be in every story... the logic and arguments won't.

This post was edited by sodajerk on Friday, November 01, 2002 at 20:30.

#21 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 11/1/2002 8:06:16 PM
Hmm, my position all along has been that Microsoft engaged in some things which were bad for the industry because of their size. The settlement addressed those issues. I don't feel that it fundamentally hurts Microsoft, as they still remain important in the industry.

It's that latter part that upsets the ABMers. They didn't want to correct problems with the market, they wanted to destroy Microsoft. It just wasn't going to happen...

#22 By 2459 (24.233.39.98) at 11/1/2002 9:03:58 PM
Sodajerk, I don't believe I am confused:
---------------------------
Recognizing, as they must, the confluence of the rapid pace of change in the software
industry and the delays inherent in antitrust litigation, Plaintiffs sought to gather all existing
complaints regarding Microsoft’s business practices and bring them before the Court at this late stage in the case. In doing so, Plaintiffs attempted to circumvent the arduous process which necessarily precedes the imposition of antitrust liability and, instead, proceeded directly to seek a remedy for the readily identifiable aspects of Microsoft’s business conduct that other industry participants find objectionable. Though an appropriate remedy may be forward-looking and address conduct beyond the specific acts found to be anticompetitive, Plaintiffs are mistaken in thinking that the imposition of § 2 liability under the Sherman Act for unlawful monopoly maintenance in the market for Intel-compatible PC operating systems permits the Court to impose a remedy in areas unrelated to the monopoly market. This suit, however remarkable, is not the vehicle through which Plaintiffs can resolve all existing allegations of anticompetitive conduct which have not been proven or for which liability has not been ascribed.
The appellate court could not have been clearer in its admonition that this Court’s decree
should be “tailored to fit the wrong creating the occasion for the remedy.” Yet despite this
admonition, in their request for relief, Plaintiffs have shown little respect for the parameters of
liability that were so precisely delineated by the appellate court. In many instances, therefore,
this Court has had little choice but to reject Plaintiffs’ remedial suggestions on the grounds that they are unjustifiably in conflict with the imposition as well as the rejection of liability in this case.
Additionally, the Court observes that a number of the remedial provisions proposed by
Plaintiffs would require drastic alterations to Microsoft’s products, as well as to aspects of its
business model which do not involve illegal conduct. Plaintiffs present little, if any, legitimate
justification for these remedies, and in most instances, these proposals are not supported by any economic analysis. Instead, it appears that these types of remedial provisions seek to convert certain legitimate aspects of Microsoft’s business model and/or product design into a model which resembles that of other industry participants simply for the sake of changing the status quo. Certain of Microsoft’s competitors appear to be those who most desire these provisions and, concomitantly, are the likely beneficiaries of these provisions, while other competitors in the relevant market would not necessarily benefit. In bringing these types of proposals before the Court, Plaintiffs again misunderstand the task presently before the Court–to remedy Microsoft’s antitrust violations. General changes to the lawful aspects of Microsoft’s business model or product design of the type proposed by Plaintiffs do not themselves provide a remedy, nor have Plaintiffs established that such changes are required, or even appropriate, in conjunction with a remedy. Accordingly, the Court has rejected those aspects of Plaintiffs’ remedy proposal which would impose such changes.

#23 By 37 (216.43.88.209) at 11/1/2002 9:16:35 PM
SodaJerk,

You crack me up. I have only seen one person spew out as much negative spin as you.

#24 By 3653 (65.190.70.73) at 11/1/2002 11:21:34 PM
n4cer (#25), you are right... MS' competitors could mount a formidable if they banded together. Will it happen? Not a chance. They are all want the whole pie, and will end up with everything or nothing.

You gotta love Kollar-Kotelly choice words against Richard Green (Sun VP)... "The incompatibility of Microsoft's JVM is a non-issue...Mr. Green's testimony is revealed as little more than an attempt to advance Sun-compliant Java technologies through this proceeding,"

And when talking about RedHat... "If Red Hat purchases one of the auctioned Office licenses, as it plans, Red Hat will benefit from Microsoft's twenty years of heavy investment in Microsoft Office," she said. "Red Hat would receive this benefit despite the fact that it has not devoted any effort or money to the development of an office productivity suite to compete with Microsoft Office and run on Linux."

It feels oh so good to hear such clear and complete understanding from the court!

Jerk, you are the eternal optimist. I love how you move straight to the EU "case" against MSFT. LOL. Have a good weekend jerk. I know I will. Try not to think of Billy.

#25 By 3339 (64.175.43.189) at 11/1/2002 11:22:34 PM
enforcer, I guess I realized your position was more nuanced... what I took objection to was the idea that the "modular system demonstration" was the most valuable evidence in an antitrust case and remedy. If you were focusing on the remedy, fine. I still object to your view that the Prosecution's not fulfilling some showbuster demo is enough to state "The non-settling states had nothing to stand on" or that your statement equates to the same argument presented inseveral finely worded paragraphs of Judicial Opinion.

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